In the News

Demographics, Other Factors Helping to Spur Suburban Revival

NJBIZ

October 15, 2018

This article talks about a report from the Edward J. Bloustein
School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, which discusses population
changes in suburban and urban regions. For the past several years, migration
from the suburbs to urban areas occurred. However, that trend is changing with
population growth in suburban neighborhoods taking place.

"The reinvention of the
suburban models will mean additional infrastructure and other costs, noted Ted
Zangari, a member of the law firm Sills Cummis & Gross PC and chair of its
Real Estate Law department, who also sits on the executive committee of the
Rutgers Center for Real Estate.

"'Municipalities must
recognize that the unique added costs of redevelopment — structured parking,
environmental remediation, vertical construction, affordable housing
requirements and others — often create legitimate project financing gaps that
require public incentives for the redeveloper to be able to achieve a
reasonable rate of return and break ground,' he said. 'Also, where parcels are
too small for redevelopment of any meaningful size or scale, municipalities
must consider designating clusters of parcels as redevelopment areas, which
allows for land assemblage, overlay zoning and tax abatements.'

"As a state, he added, 'we
need to view potential large-scale redevelopment projects from a regional
perspective, evaluating their ability to transform an area well beyond the
borders of the municipality in which it happens to be located.'”